Chipmakers next stop: Smartphone market
Monday, 22 February 2010, 23:58 IST   |    1 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
Chipmakers next stop: Smartphone market
New York: Chip manufacturers will soon be seen fighting to supply the silicon for one of the fastest growing segments of computing: smartphones, tiny laptops and tablet-style devices, reports New York Times. The fight pits several big chip companies - each trying to put its own stamp on the same basic design for mobile chips - against Intel, which is using an entirely different design to enter a market segment in which it has a minuscule presence. According to industry players, consumers are likely to benefit from the battle, which should increase competition and innovation. But it will be costly to the chip manufacturers involved. "I worry about that," said Ian Drew, an executive Vice President at ARM Holdings, which owns the rights to the core chip design used in most smartphones and licenses that technology to manufacturers. "But ultimately, these chipmakers are all pushing each other, and if one falls over, there are still two or three left." Intel, based out of California, has long been held up as the gold standard when it comes to ultra-efficient, advanced chip manufacturing plants. The company is the last mainstream chipmaker to both design and build its own products, which go into the vast majority of the PCs and servers sold each year. According to New York Times, most other chips, for items as diverse as cars and printers, are built by a group of contract manufacturers, based primarily in Asia, to meet the specifications of other companies that design and market them. Traditionally, these companies, known as foundries, have trailed Intel in terms of manufacturing technology and have handled chips with simpler designs. However, with mobile technology, an expensive race is on to build smaller chips that consume less power, run faster and cost less than products made at older factories. For example, GlobalFoundries plans to start making chips this year in Dresden, Germany, at what is arguably the most advanced chip factory ever built. The initial chips coming out of the plant will make their way into smartphones and tabletlike devices rather than mainstream computers. At the same time, Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm are designing their own takes on ARM-based mobile chips that will be made by the contract foundries. Even without the direct investment of a factory, it can cost these companies about $1 billion to create a smartphone chip from scratch.

Digital Supply Chain Transformation – Winning the AI/ML Way